


Lah' Shoov

by LotusRox



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, M/M, Very brief mention of one canon het we all dislike
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-10
Updated: 2014-04-10
Packaged: 2018-01-18 20:59:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1442659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LotusRox/pseuds/LotusRox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He liked to think he was better at coping mechanisms after all these years, but life had a way to prove him wrong from time to time.</p><p>Because despite the physical stimuli here being as diametrically opposite as it could ever be; everything about this felt like being thrown back to the Hudson, frozen and blinded by the pouring rain."</p><p>---<br/>MGS4 fic. After the Microwave Corridor, Hal Emmerich runs to reach his partner inside the GW Server Room.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lah' Shoov

Otacon didn’t know he was still capable of running that fast.

The corridor was humid and hot enough to make him sweat as soon as he opened the entrance, burning despite how long it had taken him to reach it; ozone, metal and carnage making it hard to breathe. He nearly threw up at the smell of singed flesh, stronger at every step he took. In his head, he was trying his damndest to retain a sense of rationality, anything to distract him from the horror, anything to keep him functional… usefully, his mind supplied him with the memory of how microwaves worked, the whole story behind their discovery, molten chocolate in the pocket of an unsuspecting scientist. But as he ran, dreading the end of the corridor as much as he needed to reach it, his internal monologue droning about long-learned trivia didn’t shield him from the sound of his beating heart battling with panic.

He liked to think he was better at coping mechanisms after all these years, but life had a way to prove him wrong from time to time.

 Because despite the physical stimuli here being as diametrically opposite as it could ever be; everything about this felt like being thrown back to the Hudson, frozen and blinded by the pouring rain. Behind his eyes there were still-shots of a hotwired Zodiac boat struggling to not sink amidst the stormy waves. The sensation of his own voice calling for Snake and muted by the violent rush of the river was physical. He wasn’t going to scream aloud this time, but the microwave corridor felt as eternal as the minutes by the shipwreck were; and he knew his useless attempts of escaping into distraction to not deal with his emotions, thinking of something else, anything else; meant that despite his age he was still the same terrified teenager that ran away from home to live holed up in an apartment forsaking sunlight for years.

That time, it had been Mei Ling’s proverbs; and the cartons of cheap Chinese food they had promised to buy after the mission and before going home; and some stupidly cheerful J-pop song, half muttered and lost due to language failure. And also their mission, because as they had agreed so many years ago: their mission was the most important thing, always.

The idea of  _The Mission_ , italicized and on capital letters, brought him back to year 2014 as well. Otacon thought about what had to be done and wasn’t done yet, and the insurmountable myriad of reasons to right the wrongs. His anxiety skyrocketed; but adrenaline now kept him running at the rhythm of his own inner chatter instead of just freezing him in place, and so he changed tactics: There was comfort in technicisms - he just had to bury himself in them.

Safe problems, like Derivatives and Integrals, or the precise meaning of  _three-hundred thirty-eight_ , or his “Introduction to Logic” elective class back at MIT, where he excelled at the mathematical symbolism of it and utterly crashed whenever he had to apply it to concepts; like that one mid-term exam dealing with putting into words, after several symbol exercises, the difference between Justifying and Explaining; which he never forgot out of shame.

( _Justifying implied there was reason for an action and as such it had to be condoned. Explaining just said there was a reason, making no moral judgments._  So very simple, but wasn’t always hindsight 20/20 anyway…)

He ran and thought of the Matrix, and of the running transhumanism themes in Ghost in the Shell, and the obsession with Gematria his broken grandfather tried and failed to pass onto him. Of memories of endless streams of code in programming languages he knew better than both his native English and the New Yorker Yiddish he always tried to hide because it wore the weight of his last name.

Otacon did realize it not only wasn’t working, but the alleys his thoughts were leading him through were also way unhealthier than they used to be. The last years had made him relapse into a worse version of himself instead of making him older and wiser as he should have.

It was a matter of plain sanity, though:  _He had to keep on trying to keep his emotions from destroying him before he reached Snake._  Because the most damaging guilt had already been seeping into his very bones, from the beginning of this particular mission, but demanding the limelight completely as soon as the video message from Naomi had faded from the screen of his laptop, world back into focus amidst the grief. “Guilty” as a state of being was something he was used to, that had been branded onto him his whole life, but it had started to actually kill him from the inside as insidiously as Naomi’s cancer did to her long before he stood up and took off the USS. Missouri to infiltrate Outer Haven, alone and weaponless.

Otacon had left unnoticed by Mei Ling and her people, and had gone by equally unseen by the dead bodies littering the other ship across the exact path that would guide him to GW’s Server Room. He had the schematics of Outer Heaven memorized and knew it was unlikely he encountered a living soul after the battle there had finished.

Knowing why he had allowed this to happen didn’t make it any better, and made him feel like it almost didn’t matter it meant they had finally won a war spanning decades, larger even than the sins he had contributed with to prolong it.

_(Was this an example of a chain of events he could find an “explanation” for, or merely a case of desperately trying to find a “justification”?)_

If Snake wasn’t alive… He didn’t want to think it wouldn’t have been worth it, were he to find Snake dead. Rationally, the death of one individual shouldn’t outweigh the welfare of the complete human species. 

_Rationally._

For someone with such a scientifically trained mind as his… he was the absolute worst at being rational when his heart was in the process of being yet again shredded to pieces.

Otacon had to stop to catch his breath, and the heated air of the corridor almost scorched his lungs. The floor felt hot through the soles of his shoes, too, spurring him to resume moving.

He had allowed this, had enabled it; too blind and pained and bitter to think of any other ways to finish their task, or how to dissuade Snake. Snake had wanted it, yes, but it was Otacon’s fault in the end - because he had not only let him go, but also  _let go of him._

How could anyone survive something like this corridor? And fight after crossing it?

_(They had won, and he had just killed his best friend.)_

The realization hit Otacon hard and fast, and he didn’t manage to catch it quickly enough. Something clawed sharp and painful at his chest, went up through his windpipe, and Otacon’s panting as he ran the last meters sounded too much like sobs to be excusable.

Naomi, he could cry for. Dead and abandoned in Shadow Moses, god. Naomi. She had used him, but she had also temporarily given him hope, made him believe he wouldn’t be left behind like he always was, feel  _needed_  for the first time in years. So long it had been since the last time Snake had kissed him back, Otacon couldn’t even remember when it had been; and when she corralled him, smiling and playing up to his reluctant attraction to her… he did let Naomi seduce him despite his doubts and the ever-present guilt; crushing on her so earnestly she had even returned his feelings before dying on him as all the people he loved used to. And so, with the memories of her last message still fresh, Otacon tried to concentrate on his loss of Naomi instead, because he wasn’t ever allowed to cry for Snake.

Snake  _hated_  when he cried for him; really, passionately hated it - had rejected harshly his concern, his affectionate touches and his care; and anything else that he could possibly construe as pity. And he always read it as such.

Even through the decay of Snake’s accelerated aging and the new weakness taking hold on the two of them, Otacon had wanted to believe things would somehow be alright. Because Snake always won, even if he wasn’t by any means invincible. He had demonstrated both things plenty of times. It was just, Otacon had clung onto the childish hope that Snake was strong enough for this, and if he wasn’t, then it would have been because Snake himself had wished it to end that way, with an honorable death Otacon had to respect. Were he dead, that had been Snake’s decision, taken way before the ship, and… 

_(And they had won, and Otacon had just killed the one person he loved the most.)_

It had been a twisted luck of sorts, that the certainty of Snake’s death came to him just when the end of the corridor was on sight. So unbearable he wouldn’t have made it if it had took over him earlier. Heaving, Otacon finally got to the door, and opened it with a desperate movement before he could have any kind of second thoughts.

The core of Outer Haven still looked like a graveyard, holographic flowers or not, and also like a small labyrinth. The footage he had previously seen through the Mark III aided him in his search for Snake; and when he finally found him, lying amidst a pile of broken Dwarves, Otacon was so afraid to do the mandatory check on Snake’s vitals, he was sharply aware of his own guts twisting inside of him and the sensation of ice running down his spine.

It had to be done, though, and quickly, before he got completely paralyzed.

Two fingers on the side of Snake’s neck, waiting for a signal, anything (please), faithless and exhausted.

Otacon couldn’t believe it when he felt the faint beat in his jugular, against all odds. No imperfect mouth-to-mouth this time, nor the stench of the dirty, salty water of the Hudson surrounding them both. But just like half a decade before and almost violently, he grabbed the inert Snake and clutched him to his chest for a minute, tightly, to only hear him breathing and ease his own agitation. Flooded inside by relief and the overwhelming  _love_  he still felt for this man, his partner, his other half so long estranged despite the years of living together.

Snake was alive. Maybe not for long, and never forever; but at least his arms weren’t embracing yet another dearly beloved corpse; and that fact made it better already than anything he had dared to hope.

Then he slowly cleaned the traces of blood and vomit from Snake’s lips and stuck a syringe with nanomachines into his neck. He forced himself to calm down and plan for his next actions, without letting go of the unconscious soldier’s warmth, and this time it paid off.

Because even though he was the  _absolute worst_  at being rational when his heart was amidst being shredded to pieces again, and again, and  _again_ ; his partner was alive and that meant Otacon still had to pull himself together to take on the role of the Tactician, for Snake’s sake. It was what Snake needed and damned if he was going to fail in their very last mission, after a decade of protecting him the best he could from whenever he was.

As soon as he got some of his strength back, he would have to carry the weight of both of them away from the server room and up to the deck. So much had happened, that Snake was (in more than one way) too heavy for him.

But Otacon held onto his partner and swore he would succeed.

[](http://statcounter.com/)

[](http://statcounter.com/)


End file.
